


Chiaroscuro

by TheAllonsyGirl



Series: The Presfield Files [1]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-13 04:02:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4506999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAllonsyGirl/pseuds/TheAllonsyGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chiaroscuro is the contrast between light and dark; it's the fine line between love and hate, and Max and Nathan are using it as a jump rope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tremolo

Max furrowed her brow into an impatient scowl as she scanned her marked wall. The crimson-dripped letters stood like imposing stains in stark contrast to her cream-coloured wall. The photos she had so precisely arranged over many hours were now tainted and seeked to paint a foreboding image of her future. 

"NO ONE MESSES WITH ME, BITCH!"

'Well at least he is straight to the point,' Max cursed bitterly in her own thoughts. She laughed shortly at the bitter, yet ironic comparison between Nathan Prescott, and the apocalyptic tornado that was looming over Arcadia Bay like the Grim Reaper. Both were fearsome, foreboding, and destructive, and seemed Hell-bent on following one path. 

She sighed and pulled open the door to her room, and wiped her slate clean from Victoria's latest catty attempt at soul-destruction. She drew a picture of a CCTV camera and added a friendly warning of the "surveillance" that was in operation within. 

Max's phone chirped four times in a matter of seconds; Warren, Chloe, Kate and a private number. 

8:37AM Warren: Mad Max! I need to know if you still want to go to the drive-in! It'll be fun. Honestly! Even with me! ;) xD

8:37AM Chloe: Yo! Don't avoid me! Breakfast. Two Whales. Don't be late. No emoji!!!

8:37:AM Kate: Thanks for the book Max, and for your advice about the police. You're a really great friend. TTYL XOXO

8:37AM Private number: Keep your smart mouth shut about everything, or I'm coming for your ass. I know where you sleep. 

"Great," Max rolled her eyes and put her phone away after quickly shooting off replies to her friends. "That has to be Nathan," she mumbled under her breath as she headed out of the dormitory building. The sun laced through branches and trees, gleaming upon anything within its purview, but still the air was heavy with wrong. 

Max pattered down the steps and onto the street; the bus stop was minimally equidistant on both sides of the campus. She slipped each ear bud in and calmly flipped apathetically through her tracklist. As music began to pour into her head, she closed her eyes and blocked the world away with it. The grab upon her shoulder jarred her from serenity and as she turned she pulled her headphones out to chastise the purveyor of such a crime. 

"Nathan? Get your hands off me!" Max gave him a substantial shove and he looked down at the spot where she'd touched him and his eyes became steely. 

"Why don't you make me? Where's World of Warcraft? Not following you around for the hope of a scrap of a date you might toss his way?" Nathan's vocal chords seeped of liquid vitriol and Max clenched her teeth;

"Fuck off, Prescott," she spat back at him and turned her back on him. 

"Why don't you make me?" he repeated like some mentally-challenged parrot. Max had grown weary of Nathan's chatter, and had reached an understanding that Nathan only understood one language; violence. She turned around and connected her palm with his smooth cheek, her palm tingling with the spread of justice in her digits. 

Nathan looked dumbfounded for a moment, but not long enough. He was brazen to do such a thing in broad daylight but he grabbed her arms and wrenched them into a position of unabashed submission. The pain did not make Max's eyes sting with tears, but rather made her soul burn in complete fury. She pulled her body round enough to reach Nathan's cream-coloured neck. Much like the ficticious fiends of the night, she clamped all 28 teeth down and Nathan yelped. It was a strange noise, it sounded like a mixture of shock, outrage and...desire? He let Max's arms fall free and rubbed the pink and moist flesh of his neck, his eyes dark with rage and latent passion. Max was sure that was what lived behind the eyes of Nathan Prescott. He smiled wickedly and cocked his head to one side. 

"So much fight," the rage was draining, his smile was almost...attractive? Max winced away from such a twisted thought and glowered harder to make up for such a notion. Nathan sensed her sickness and this made his smile break into grinning. 

"Nobody messes with me, Caulfield...but if you want to mess with me...I might take you on," he spoke with such charm, Max had no doubt of his sociopathy. She did wonder where on the mental illness scale she lay however, because something in her was forcing her to watch him leave, and that sick part of her wanted to follow him. 

9:02AM Chloe: Max???

Max snapped back into reality as she picked up Chloe's text and flashed a wave at the oncoming yellow bus. She put her headphones back in and picked a seat in the middle by the window. As the bus began to move, her mouth fell open a little as she stared across the street. Nathan was leaning against a wall and waving his phone at Max, and she swore she even saw the crazy kid wink at her. The same private number that had blasted her less than one hour ago pinged again. 

9:04AM Private number: Anytime. 

A shiver ran down her spine as the bus sped up and Nathan left her vision. Out of sight, out of mind, Max mused to herself, but it wasn't true. That psychotic Prescott kid was possibly the most fascinating person she'd ever come across, and as guilty and twisted as she felt for it, she wanted to find out more. 

She pulled out her phone and shot a text off to Chloe; Going to be late. Something I have to do.  
9:07AM Chloe: Running late anyway. Don't you dare bail on me again though.  
Reply: I won't, promise :)  
9:08AM Chloe: NO EMOJI!!

Max jumped up signaled her wish to depart, and headed back the way she had come. 

"Anytime?" she muttered and carried on beating the pavement with her trainers. She wondered if she would wake up soon, or whether she was really going out of her way to find a Prescott. She turned the last corner and glanced up at Blackwell Academy to her left. Nathan was right where he'd been when she had left and she tried to be bold as she walked up to him;

"How about now, Prescott?" she folded her arms and stuck her chin up to appear confident. Nathan turned back towards her and smiled, it was a mixture of glee, deviousness, and danger. 

"About time," he quipped and stepped forward. Max's automatic reaction was to step back or flinch, but he took her hand, albeit crushingly, and pulled her along next to him. 

"Where are you taking me?" her voice was not as strong as she'd wanted it to be; she sounded nervous and prude. 

"My dorm room; I have some things to show you that you'll find...exciting," he smirked, thin-lipped but with a glint in his eye. Max stopped asking questions; out loud at least.


	2. On Enemy Lines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max continues to engage in a dangerous game with Nathan. She knew she'd eventually have to tell Chloe everything, but she had all the time in the world to do that, right?

The boys' dormitories didn't look much different to her own, Max pondered. The irony hadn't escaped her that she resided in the "Prescott Dormitory" either. The chiaroscuro-inspired vision of Nathan and Max passing through the open courtyard was igniting some thoughtful yet horrified stares. Dana and Trevor stopped their candid PDA for a moment to share hushed and frenzied whispers over it, and Warren was clearly fighting every impulse in his body not to rush over and separate the unlikely grip. 

Nathan pushed the door and pulled Max's arm enough to make her shoulder sting a little, but not enough to cause anyone to become alarmed and to intervene. The layout was minutely different to the girls' dorms, but in every way it was inherently the same. 

They took a left into the gloom and stopped outside room 111. Max's eye slid across to the right of the door to Nathan's slate:

"THE PRESCOTTS RULE THIS SCHOOL"

She had to mentally prevent herself from rolling her eyes into the back of her head; he was the epitome of a spoiled rich kid. She was gearing herself up for an all-out verbal assault as soon as they were behind closed doors. Her mind swirled and marred with a thousand questions, the most prevalent of which being; Why did you shoot my best friend? That was just the beginning, given the hazy account of the harrowing night that was Kate's only Vortex Club party. 

Nathan closed the door behind them, and slipped his red jacket from his shoulders and threw it onto the black leather couch. Max narrowed her eyes a little at the scratches on the floor below the couch's wooden legs. Was there something behind? She considered ways she could snoop around here, but she noticed Nathan snapping his fingers in front of her nose. 

"Eyes front, Caulfield," his voice growled a little and she flipped her gaze back to his. He had made himself comfortable on the bed with his arms behind his head, and he watched her like a predatory owl eyeing up a mouse. 

"Why did you do it?" Max blurted out before she could stop herself. Nathan's left eye twitched a little but he maintained his composure. His predatory eyes narrowed further. 

"I don't think that needs a discussion," he spoke shortly, trying not to fly off the handle again. 

"Well I do," Max snapped and put her hand on her hip. Nathan licked his lips and  sighed haughtily. 

"You don't know what that bitch did," he spoke through gritted teeth. 

"Enlighten me," Max's strident reply even surprised her with its vitriol. 

"None of you get it do you? My father owns you all! Especially me. If she exposes me do you have any idea what he'd do to me?" his rage had begun to tremble like the San Andreas fault line as he used swiping hand gestures for punctuation. 

"Take away your trust fund?" she bit back with steely determination. Nathan bit into the side of his cheek, and dug his nails deep enough into his sweating palms that they left small crescent-shaped red grooves. He flicked his eyes across to the small brown pill bottles on the floor and back again with a determined swallow. Max slid her eyes to where his had lingered and she took a mental picture to use for later. 

Max folded her arms in an attempt at nonchalance and checked her phone. She had roughly an hour to make it back to the diner. The time Chloe demanded her presence and the time she would actually grace Max with hers, were two entirely different things. She would be late and they both knew it; Max could certainly afford the luxury of time now, even though Chloe was none the wiser at this point. 

Nathan patted the bed next to him and his eyes gleamed like those belonging to a predatory snake upon spying a field mouse. Max slid uncertainly across the small distance between them and slowly lowered herself to the bed. Nathan popped the lid from a bottle of what looked like sparkling water or perhaps lemonade. He poured it into two small glass tumblers. He handed one across to Max, who took it quickly to save it dropping from Nathan's shaky hand. 

"You haven't drugged this have you?" Max laughed a little nervously but hiding the glimmer of uncertainty as well as could be expected. She wondered what the hell she thought she was doing here, with Nathan Prescott; the guy who could have hurt her friend. 

"No. I was under the impression you were here of your own volition," Nathan licked his top lip cautiously. Max drew the glass to her lips and sipped a little. The biting, bitter taste assaulted her taste buds and she pulled the glass away. 

"Ugh, what IS that?" she gasped and wiped her mouth with her sleeve, still grimacing from the taste. 

"Chill out Caulfield, it's vodka tonic," Nathan rolled his eyes at her naiveté.

"We're at school genius, you know that right?" Max raised an accusing eyebrow and swished the liquid around so it created little waves against the sides of the glass. Nathan's palm hit his forehead with a considerable sound and he shook his head. 

"What are you, twelve? Suck it up Caulfield, my girls drink, you'll get used to it," he said these words as more of an order than a reassuring statement. Max caught their darkness and gulped thickly. She downed the tumbler's remaining contents and rose. 

"I have to go, Chloe will be waiting for me," she spoke matter of factly and slid her bag back onto her shoulder and zipped up her hoodie as some sort of protection from the invisible tendrils that appeared to be running rampant under her skin. 

Nathan seemed disinterested by her revelation, and merely gulped down another mouthful of vodka tonic. 

"Suit yourself," he sniffed and picked up his cellphone, his fingers toying with the edges of it as his eyes remained fixated on her. 

"I'll be waiting for you later on, and I don't like to be kept waiting," his eyes became steely and stormy once again. Max felt a coldness close its fingers around her spine as she turned to walk out of the door. Her fingers grasped the handle and pulled it open quickly. She both hated and delighted in the way his psychosis played into her doe-like innocence. She knew that she was playing a very dangerous game, but she felt an air of arrogance and flippancy in the knowledge that she was a time-bender. 

She turned back to Nathan for a second before taking her first step out from the forbidden threshold, and left him with words that sounded warped in her own mind before she even let them spring into fruition;

"You can't take back your mistakes you know, Nathan; they stay with you," her gentle eyes challenged his exterior armour of foreboding. A flicker of fear and subtle understanding passed across Nathan's weary yet bewildered face. There was something so wrong about him and his twisted nature, but there was a glimmer of something childlike, and almost innocent in him too. Max realised it was fear. Fear of isolation, of abandonment, of failure. Simply speaking, Nathan Prescott was not super-human; he was just like every other insecure soul his age. 

Max walked out into the grounds and scanned the other students who seemed to be gathered en mass around the entranceway steps and benches. Kate's haunted and gentle eyes studied Max for a few moments, and Max tried to deduce her thoughts from them. Was there judgement? Curiosity? Hurt? Kate was unreadable and very much capable of shielding herself off from analysis. Max shook it off and walked away from the eyes she felt following her and pulled her satchel bag closer to her. 

She looked into the trees and out across the streets just to keep her eyes away from Blackwell Academy, to keep the cascading chaos of thoughts that clamoured beneath her skull from breaking through and taking over. The seven minutes she waited for the bus felt like seventeen. She pushed her earbuds into her ears and sighed deeply as she turned the music up. As the bus pulled away and the rural setting of Blackwell blurred away, Max felt lighter and freer. 

As she lazily slid her eyes open, Max swung up from her seat and thanked the driver with a wave. As the bus drove away she pulled out her new camera and snapped a shot of a tin can and newspaper page as they churned up into the air in an improper dance. She smiled and shook out the image before slipping it into her bag. 

The bell rang as she pushed the Two Whales Diner door open, and the smell of childhood activated Max's nostalgia. It was then she saw Joyce, looking just as genial and mildly overworked as she always had. A small smile crept onto her face and she slipped into a booth. Chloe wasn't there, no surprise. Max rolled her eyes and shook her head in a good-natured way as she'd accepted many moons ago that she'd never change her ways.  
Joyce picked up a large and full coffee pot and headed over to the booth, her eyes glittering as she took in her daughter's childhood friend. Max prepared herself for a potentially awkward conversation as she tried to conceive of a reason for why she bailed on her best friend and her family after the death of her father. She didn't worry about it, she could afford a few little errors; after all, she'd been given the gift of time.


	3. Sins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max's resolve is wavering, and it's becoming too much to bear. She's battling with her hatred for Nathan and the fondness which has begun to grow in close proximity.

Joyce smiled widely and poured fresh instant coffee into a mug, which she placed in front of Max, and spoke in the same soft voice as Max always remembered, with Southern hospitality and kindness in every vowel;

"There you are, a beautiful young woman. How are you doin' Max?" she placed her hand on her hip as she leaned a little, placing the coffee pot on the diner table. 

"Hi Joyce, you look exactly the same," Max smiled, a fondness intertwining with her words as her best friend's mom stood before her once again. 

"Like I'm still a waitress at Two Whales after all these years?" Joyce playfully raised an eyebrow, as Max shook her head with a light giggle.

"No, like you're still pretty," she added, hoping that her true intent was conveyed. Joyce chuckled;

"Nice save," her lips pursed into a smirk that Max shared for a moment, before looking at the table and swallowing thickly. 

"Joyce, I'm so sorry about William, I have wonderful memories of him," 

"That was his gift to us; wonderful memories," she smiled sadly

"Now finish your coffee," she disappeared into the back to place Max's food order and Max stared out of the window, listlessly contemplating everything that had happened so far and what she craved for the future. She sipped her coffee and frowned as she felt her phone buzz in her front pocket. She pulled it out and out down her coffee slowly. 

9:45 PRIVATE NUMBER: Your purity is inspiring, you're on a fine line, corruption is near. 

She scanned across her phone screen and tilted her head to one side; she knew it wasn't Nathan, she'd actually saved his number after their dalliance earlier this morning. Who would send such a weirdly phrased and deeply shrouded message? She shook her head and looked up as Joyce placed her food down on the table; a Belgian waffle with cream, berries and syrup, and Chloe pounced onto the chair;

"Mom and Max back together again!" she smirked and battled lightly with her mom for a few moments before Joyce walked off to procure her daughter only one slice of bacon today. 

"So let's talk about your superpower..."

********************************************************************************  
13:07PM Nate: HEY.   
13:08PM Nate: MAX.   
13:09PM Nate: WHAT DID I SAY?

Chloe looked over at Max with a vicious side-eye before she passive aggressively slammed the last bottle down on the make-shift range. 

"Please, answer your texts, you've already had a chat with Kate so why not ignore me some more?" She glared at Max and folded her arms defensively. 

"Will you stop? How many times are you gonna get mad at me this week?" Max glanced at the notifications and bit her lip; Nathan. 

"That depends on you," she sniffed the air derisively and pulled out the gun she had commandeered from her "Step Douche" and began aiming at various things and pretending to shoot them, ignoring Max in the most puerile way she could muster. 

"Well I have to make a call, so can you try to stay out of trouble for five minutes?" Max was met with silence and she simply rolled her eyes and turned away to place the call. It rang out four times before Nathan granted her his presence. 

"You didn't text me back," Nathan was clearly talking through gritted teeth but his tone was not incredibly angry, moreover he seemed almost eerily calm. 

“My phone is on silent, and I’m with my best friend,” she eyed Chloe, who still had her fixed in an icy glare. 

“All I’m hearing are words that don’t get me what I want,” Nathan sounded almost petulant, like a child who demanded his mother buy him a new fire truck, but then what did she expect from such a rich kid?

“And what is it that you want?” Max bit back and leaned herself against the trunk of a rusty junker within the American wasteland.

“I want to play a game,” she could hear Nathan smiling through his words, but they held no malice. 

“What kind of game?” Max found herself intrigued, confused, scared and excited all in one moment. How did he do so much with so little words? She felt a tingle down her spine and she licked her lips tentatively. 

“The kind of game where you and I are together, alone, and things get…interesting,” she could hear the desire and latent frustration dancing through every syllable and something in her wanted to take off running back to Blackwell, back to Nathan, and away from Chloe. It was another shiver of disgust that brought her back to reality; was she really going to leave her best friend to play sordid games with Nathan Prescott? The guy who had shot her right in front of her eyes, and had potentially drugged Kate? If Chloe knew what she was doing she’d cave her skull right in. And Kate…poor, sweet Kate, Max imagined the look in her eyes if she knew what was going on. It almost made her reconsider. Almost. 

“Alright, I’ll meet you at the girls’ dormitories,” Max felt Chloe’s eyes burning into the back of her head. 

“Good, that’s what I like to hear,” Nathan’s voice was a mixture of calm and unstable and Max had no idea how that was even possible. All she knew is it made her skin feel like it was aflame. She hung up and turned to Chloe;

“I’m really sorry, I have to get back to Blackwell. It’s…Kate. She’s not okay, and she needs my help. I said I’d meet her. I really need you to understand this Chloe, and whether you would do the same if it was Rachel,” Max spoke softly as she finished her sentence, unsure if those last few words were to be the fuse that detonated the bomb. Chloe bristled upon hearing Rachel’s name, but her jaw and fists unclenched, and her shoulders were no longer braced as she sighed;

“You’re right. I’d go in a second if it was Rachel. We can come back here later, right? We’ve got all the time in the world after all,” she grinned ghoulishly. 

“Of course we can, I have a way with time,” Max chuckled, and as they walked to the truck, Max could feel the lies she had told creeping up like tentacles to smother her nose, her mouth, and silence her betrayal forever. She hated lying, and especially to Chloe, but she could not find out about this; she just wouldn’t ever understand. 

Chloe chattered away as she drove, in a storm of ideas of how they could use Max’s new found rewind power, and Max replied passively; her mind was elsewhere. Her mind was in the depths of depravity, the darkest corners she could imagine. It was only at this moment the thought had occurred to her; she was a virgin. What could Nathan possibly want to do with her that she wouldn’t fail horribly at. Perhaps, she thought, that was his intention above all; to humiliate her for her lack of experience. Still, she got out of Chloe’s truck, waved goodbye and fist-bumped her, before heading to the entrance to the girls’ dorms. She arrived to find Nathan leaning nonchalantly against the door, grinning at her with wickedness and glee; somehow Max found this strangely attractive, and with each time they spoke, the tingle in her body got lower. Max hadn’t bothered to check behind her, had she done so she would have seen the waif figure of her best friend, only partially concealed by a tree. Chloe watched them, and she had to fight the urge to charge towards them and bash their heads together as Nathan put his hand on her shoulder. Chloe would do something next that she had never done before; she would keep her mouth shut. She would test her friend’s mettle, and see how far she would spin this web of lies, and then when the moment was right, she’d pounce. She would demand an answer, several answers to what Max was doing with a Prescott, THAT Prescott. She could rewind all she wanted, Chloe would not forget this. 

****************************************************************************************************************************

Nathan released his grip on Max’s hoodie when they reached her room. The dorm was thankfully like a ghost town, and it took her a few moments to realise why; she had lost track of time so much that she was late for, and was now missing Mr Jefferson’s class. The irony was not lost on her. 

“Shit! I have Jefferson’s class,” she mumbled and covered her face with her hands. Maybe it was better this way; she would go to class and Nothing would happen between them. 

“Not anymore. C’mon Crackfield, you never skipped class before?” Nathan smirked and put his hand on her lower back to pull her close to him. Max didn’t tell him to stop, but she braced a little, being so close to him for the first real time in this way since that first encounter. 

“Don’t worry, you’re gonna learn way more from me than Jefferson, and this way, no one sees us and starts asking questions. I do have a reputation to maintain y’know,” Nathan pushed the now unlocked door open and stepped inside, before tugging the front of Max’s hoodie to get her to move out of the hallway. 

“Oh I’m sure your stellar reputation as a Grade A douchebag and psychotic fruit cake will prevail, Prescott,” Max glowered at him, and he growled impatiently with a little indignation. 

“I like you better when you don’t talk,” he pouted and pulled her face to his, his lips fitting into a complete synchronicity with hers in an instant. She fell prey to his touch and clambered onto the bed beside him, surprised at how much she wanted him to touch her. As his tongue melted against hers she sighed softly, his hands pulling her as close as humanly possible to him roughly, yet his kisses were needy but surprising sweet. She didn’t know what to do next. What was sexy? Should she take off her shirt? His shirt? Should she undo his belt and…no, she wasn’t ready for that. Should she tell him she wasn’t ready or wait until he tried? She didn’t know, so she continued to kiss him, until something came over her. She climbed on top of him and straddled him; she could feel how much he wanted her as she did so, and she felt something deep in her core. She’d never done this before but he was so turned on, she wanted more, but she wanted control. 

Nathan looked up at her. His crystalline blue eyes shimmering in the daylight, yet their darkness prevailed as he felt her climb on top of him. It surprised him; she was a virgin, but this was not the way a virgin behaved. She was into it, she wanted it, she wanted him. He reached out to unzip her hoodie and her eyes caught his for a moment. Nathan Prescott was a lot of things, but he was not a guy who did not wait for consent. He looked up at her and she nodded slightly; the unspoken code for “let’s do this. He continued to kiss her as he slipped the hoodie off and threw it across the room to the couch. He could see her small but perfectly rounded breasts through her pink deer shirt, the outlines of her nipples was driving him crazy. He wanted nothing more than to go all the way with Max Caulfield, but it wouldn’t happen. Not today. He wasn’t ready for it to be over; the back and forth between them, the love/hate game they played was insatiable, and Nathan wanted to play a while longer. That said, he was going to give her a reason to come back. 

Max gasped as Nathan flipped her down onto her back, and began to unzip her jeans; this was it, the first time a guy would see and touch the most intimate place she possessed. She was nervous, she knew she had showered, she knew she could say no, but she had no desire to. He kissed her stomach, mapping his way across her skin with his tongue, the occasional nip making her squeak. Before long she felt his breath against her thighs and in between, then his lips, and then his tongue. Oh god, his tongue. She arched her back and snaked a hand down her body to tangle within Nathan’s hair. He moaned up against her, chuckling as she squeaked and squirmed beneath him. She had never had an orgasm before. She wasn’t sure she would even know if she’d had one. All she knew was that she never wanted Nathan to stop spelling out his name with his tongue, and she never wanted him to stop kissing her, nipping her. She reached a fever pitch, and was suddenly glad they were alone in the dorms, or else they would have heard her cries of his name, God’s name, any manner of nonsensical words tumble from her lips. 

She lay there for a moment, as Nathan slinked his way up to lie next to her, which was a little cramped on her little single bed. He nipped her lip playfully and she licked his in return. It was then it hit her; she was half naked, with Nathan, she’d allowed him to defile her innocence, and she was very aware it was him that was touching her. She scrambled to redress and climbed over a bemused Nathan. 

“Uh, I uh, I have to go,” Max grabbed her satchel and yanked the door open. Nathan rolled his eyes and leaned on his hand to look at her. She had to try to look anywhere else as he lay there, still aroused, staring at her. 

“You realise this is your dorm room you’re leaving.” He raised a condescending eyebrow and she dashed out of the room. 

“And people say I’m crazy,” he sighed and took one of Max’s selfies from the wall. He put it in his jacket pocket and stretched out across her bed. He pulled out his cellphone;

14:04PM NATHAN: I know you’re out there I can hear you breathing. 

Max felt her phone buzz, and pulled it out. She read the message, put her head in her hands and scuttled down the corridor, and out into the courtyard and mumbled to herself;

“What the fuck was that?” She chastised herself, but it was of little use. She could not deny that Nathan Prescott had made her feel so unbelievably good, more than she ever conceived would be possible in that regard. She couldn’t deny that he was experienced, sexy, dark and…completely unstable. That last part should have sent her running for the hills, but she knew without a shadow of a doubt she needed more. Her soul craved his, her body yearned for him, and her mind reviled him and her concurrently in that moment. It was a secret she had to keep, lest she faced the disdain and fury of the people who wanted to see his head on a spike. She knew she was slowly slipping into madness, she considered no other alternative, he was filling her head, and no matter what she wanted to do, she was becoming irretrievably intertwined with him, and her deeper secret was that part of her didn’t even mind.


End file.
